Shockingly Fantastic Books: Wilkie Collins’s “The Woman in White”

Shockingly Fantastic Books is a weekly series by me, where I pick out one of my favourite books to write about.  All of the books in this series can be found at the bottom of the post, and they will be struck out as I write about them.

The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
This book is immensely special and brilliant in many ways. It is thought of to be the ‘ultimate’ sensation novel (which started detective stories, such as Sherlocke Holmes). At the time of its publication it had Victorians waiting outside shops in their hundreds waiting to get the next installment (bit like Harry Potter these days, I suppose…) The reason for this is the suspense and mystery it created and it was one of the first to do so.

Shockingly Fantastic Books: Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”

Shockingly Fantastic Books will be a weekly series by me, where I pick out one of my favourite books to write about.  All of the books in this series can be found at the bottom of the post, and they will be struck out as I write about them.

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
One of my favourite books of all time and unfortunately lays quite forgotten due to the constant whoring of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Not a bad thing, since both are great books as well. This novel is not quite clear cut as the others as the heroines marriage is not really the centre of the plot. It’s rather a-coming-of-age affair as the protagonist, totally inexperienced in society, who only knows the world of gothic novels, has to come to terms with the things she has read, and what actually happens in the real world.